Theme structure

The overall layout of your online store is controlled by your theme. Your theme uses templates to specify how content appears in your store on specific pages or page types. A template is made up of sections, which are composed of blocks. Sections and blocks are modules that you can use to customize the layout of your online store.

Templates are customized by adding, removing, and rearranging sections and the blocks within. You can have up to 25 sections for each template, and each section can contain up to 50 blocks. Not all sections will have individual blocks to customize.

For example, if you make unique handcrafted items, then you might create a not-for-sale product template to apply to all products you've already sold. This template might have two sections: Product information and Related products. The Product information section might have only the Title and Description blocks, as you wouldn't want to display things like quantity selectors or buy buttons if a product isn't available to purchase.

Saved templates can be applied to new or existing pages and products using the theme editor or your Shopify admin.

Sections can be customized and added to any page of your online store, with the exception of gift card and checkout pages.

In this section

• Templates

• Sections and blocks

Templates

Templates are a group of sections that are configured to give your online store a consistent design and feel. The sections that are available in your templates depends on your theme. In the theme editor, you can find which templates are applied to which pages, and then edit the templates to customize the information that you display to your customers.

Your theme contains templates for different types of content. These templates types contain sections and blocks that pull content dynamically from the respective area of your Shopify admin. For example, your theme's product page template creates a page for each product published to your online store in the Products section of your Shopify admin.

When you edit a template, your changes apply to every page that uses the template. For example, if you add a newsletter signup form to a collections template, then all your collection pages that use the default collections template display the newsletter signup form.

Default templates

Each default template has its own default sections and settings that you can edit and customize in the theme editor. For example, product pages have a Product information section and a Related products section by default. The specific customization settings for each theme depend on your theme's developer and theme version. Learn more about finding your theme version.

The templates are available in your theme by default.

Products

Your theme's product pages display information about the products that you sell on your store, and where your customers can buy the products from.

By default, product pages have a Product information section and a Related products section in the theme editor.

The Product information section displays the details of your products, such as the title, description, price, and images. You can manage your products from the Product page of your Shopify admin.

Collections

Your theme's collection pages display the collections that you create in the Products > Collection page of your Shopify admin. specific products together in categories. You can have smart collections and manual collections.

By default, collection pages have a Collection banner section and a Product grid section in the theme editor.

Collections list

The collections list page displays all your collections that are available on the Online Store sales channel. For example, if you have a jewelry store, then you can add a link to your collections list page in your menu for customers to browse by the jewelry type, such as rings or necklaces. You'll need to create collections for each category.

Gift card

When you create a gift card, or a customer orders a gift card product, the details of that gift card are included on the gift card page, such as the gift card value or balance and redemption code.

The gift card page is part of your theme. You can customize your theme to add or adjust the style and information that's included on the gift card page.

The value of the gift card and the gift card redemption code can't be customized.

Pages

You can make custom pages in your Shopify admin to create content for your customers, such as an About Us page, or for extra information about your products.

Cart page

The cart page on your online store is where your customers can review the items that they've added to their cart.

By default, the cart page has an Items section and a Subtotal section in the theme editor.

Blogs

Blog pages on your online store are the homepage for any blogs that you create in your Shopify admin and contain all of the published blog posts in that blog.

By default, blog pages contain a Blog posts section in the theme editor.

Blog posts

Blog post pages on your online store display the content of blog posts that you create in the Content > Blog post page of your Shopify admin. By default, blog post pages contain a Blog post section in the theme editor.

Search page

The search page is where customers can search for and find specific products, pages, or blog posts within your online store.

By default, the search page contains a Search results section in the theme editor.

As well as the Search results section settings, you can also view and customize some of the Theme Settings for search behavior, and you can add your own section-specific Custom CSS.

Password page

You can set your store to be password protected in the Online Store > Preference page of your Shopify admin. If your store is password protected, then the password page displays to visitors of your online store. The password page template has a unique header and footer. You can customize the password page template from the theme editor.

404 page

The 404 page displays when a customer tries to visit a link to your site that doesn't exist, such as a product page for a product that you deleted from your store.

This page has no customizable settings, but you can add your own section-specific Custom CSS to your 404 page in the theme editor.

Edit your templates

You can edit your templates to add sections to your online store. Some sections contain blocks that can be further customized, but not every section or block has settings or content that can be edited. When you edit your templates, your changes display in real time in the theme editor preview.